


Beyond the Courts

by UncannySkies



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 05:40:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/936051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UncannySkies/pseuds/UncannySkies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Behind their pretense of invincibility and perfection, the Rikkai Tennis Club is still just a club of teenagers with their own quirks and levels of insanity.<br/>A collection of ficlets involving Rikkai Dai and affiliated teams. Cross-posted from FF.net.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Arcade

Five in the afternoon– the sky had just been touched by the faintest wisps of purple. Most students had gone home by now, if not to their respective cram schools. This was not the case for a certain trio who had apparently decided that the best way to spend their waking hours away from school was to head to the game center.

Or maybe not for Kuwahara Jackal who pretty much just gets dragged around everywhere by his supposed friends. “Guys, I have an exam tomorrow. I need to go home.”

“No way, man. You’re still buying us cake after this,” Marui Bunta said, never prying his eyes off the girl he was controlling in some mainstream fighting game.

“What!? Since when did I agree to that!?”

“Yesterday. We were just talking about it after practice. At least, I thought you were there…”

Jackal was pretty sure that he was running errands for the vice-captain that time, and therefore, could not have been there. “Wait, so you guys just carry on conversations with me while I’m not there?”

“Nope. Pretty sure you were there– AW DAMN! WHAT THE HELL!?” Kirihara Akaya cursed as he was defeated by this “Bun-bun” for what seemed to be the hundredth time since they got there. “I only looked away for, what, half a second!? Marui-sempai, you rigged this, didn’t you!? That girl is rigged, isn’t she!?”

The only sane man in the group ignored that outburst and turned to the redhead. “Hey, come to think of it, you have an exam too!”

“What did you say? I can’t hear you over the sound of MY GENIUS!” Marui cheered as he tried to pry his underclassman away from his screen.

And that was when Jackal knew neither of them was going to pass that exam.


	2. Hospital Visit

Yukimura Seiichi felt no love for the hospital. The scent of overly clean linen, the pale walls trapping him within them– he hated all of it. With every passing hour, he would be reminded of how helpless he was, of how pointless his continued existence was in a world that only sought to crush the dreams he thought he could achieve.

But whenever his team came to visit, the pain subsides, if only temporarily.

Yanagi would serenely rap on the door– three times all the time, he counted. Sanada would step in and try to greet him in his typical formal manner, only to be interrupted. Marui or Akaya or both at the same time would burst in, holding a box of some kind of pastry. Marui would later eat a portion for five, but no one really minded (besides Sanada, of course) after the third time he did it. The vice-captain would always reprimand him with a stern “tarundoru” which pretty much passes through Marui’s ears as if the former had just said “the sky is blue in the morning”. Jackal would nudge him to get him to listen, but he never actually succeeds.

Yagyuu would come in with some sort of present– he brought a pot of dahlias once– which he would immediately place on the table by the bed. Niou would then complain to Yukimura about everything that Sanada did wrong and demand that he get better so the vice-captain would stop “being such a douche” all the time. Yukimura may or may not later find out that the two had actually switched. 

Usually, they would go up to the rooftop. The atmosphere felt so much freer up there. Sometimes, they would all just sit in a circle and talk about how they were most definitely going to win the Nationals again this year. Other times, they would try to do that but end up screaming at each other for no apparent reason. Or running around trying to get away from an angry vice-captain. Fortunately, the roof was surrounded by a metal fence.

He never told them, but Yukimura knew that the only reason he had not given up hope was their visits.


End file.
